Politicking on pride in their
state, Montana Jaycees elected
officers at Big Sky resort last
May. Vested in campaign badges,
the vice-president of the men's
civic club, Alfred (Poncho) Page
(right), approves incoming presi
dent Joel Ebben (left). The Miles
City businessman accepts the
gavel with thanks for the "loving
support of my wife, Lanny." She
is active in the wives' club, the
Jayceens. Earlier Mr. Ebben led
a Jaycee-sponsored project to
control flooding of the Tongue
River in Miles City.
against Anaconda in 1970, blocking plans for
a new mine. "People who wanted to save the
land got a big boost from that," said news
paperman Dale Burk of Missoula. I met Dale
as he was about to leave for Harvard Univer
sity on a Nieman Fellowship. He had won
recognition for articles on conservation, parti
cularly questioning clear-cutting in the na
tional forests, published in a former Anaconda
newspaper, the Missoulian.
In Bozeman I met Eldon Smith, a wildlife
biologist, and his wife, Elizabeth, a writer,
who were fighting in the 1960's for such
causes as protection of streambeds from bull
dozing. "We had always been stepchildren,"
Liz said, her large green eyes flashing, "but
now there are people in the state agencies and
the legislature who feel as we do. We're mem
bers of the family now-though I don't think
we're the oldest son by any means."
A few miles southwest of Bozeman moun
tains close in on the Gallatin River, seemingly
determined to dam this stream, which rises
in Yellowstone National Park and eventually
Should They Build a Fence Around Montana?
joins the Madison and the Jefferson to found
the mighty Missouri. You do an exaggerated
dance with the Gallatin, twisting, turning,
following its lead, as you drive toward Yel
lowstone on U. S. 191. Finally the peaks relax
their corset strings, and the Gallatin meanders
in meadows, a ribbon of mirror crazing a
Charles Russell sky. A fly fisherman arcs a
pencil line of nylon and the heart yearns to
share his splendid solitude.
Forty-three miles from Bozeman I turned
off the highway on a cold winter day. An
hour or so later I was zipping (and sometimes
tumbling) down the ski slopes of Big Sky, the
60-million-dollar resort that grew from Chet
Huntley's dream (following pages).
The late NBC newscaster was born to par
ents who homesteaded on the plains. When
he was a nightly guest in millions of living
rooms, he looked upon Montana as a place to
forget the world's turmoil. "He felt that
people were constantly bugged by bad news,"
said his widow, Tippy. An effervescent
woman who seems to be everywhere at Big
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